Dave Cool is the Blogger-In-Residence at musician website and marketing platform Bandzoogle.

One of the most common questions I was asked by artists during my time as a venue booker was how they could find a booking agent. I inevitably answered that they should just keep playing gigs, grow their fan base, and an agent would find them. But is the answer really that simple? In a word, yes. By far the best way to get a professional booking agent is for bands to book themselves until the point where they are selling out shows on a regular basis on their own.

What does this mean exactly? To put it in numbers, regularly sell-out shows of 100-150 people at around $10 per ticket in your home market. What’s your home market? Your home city, plus maybe 2-3 other nearby cities/towns. If you can sell 100-150 tickets at $10 each in a few cities on a regular basis (once every few months), then you’ll be generating the kind of income that would be interesting to a booking agent, and there’s a good chance they’ll come find you at that point. Easy, right?

OK, all kidding aside, I know how hard it can be to get to that point. And I know what you’re thinking: is it really all about the money? Yes and no. Agents are music fans too, however, they aren’t going to work for free. Think about it from their perspective: if you’re not even making $200 per show, why would they work for a % of that revenue? A professional agent makes their living from the commissions of a band’s show revenues, usually around 15%. So if your live show revenue isn’t in the $800+ range, it’s going to be very hard to convince a professional booking agent to get on board with your career.

So what if you’re not selling that many tickets just yet? What can you do to help build your career up to the point where an agent might be interested in working with you? Here are some key areas to focus on:

Are there bands out there who have less than 1000 mailing list subscribers, Facebook fans or Twitter followers, but who have a booking agent? I’m sure there are, but once you reach that level, you’re putting yourself a cut above where most bands are at, and then you can start thinking about putting together a team of professionals, including a booking agent. You’ll have a solid following that you can use to generate bodies at live shows, especially if those fans and followers are concentrated in your home market.

Work on your live show: rehearse often and pay attention to your set list

Get your live show to the point where people are going home blown away and talking about you when they leave the venue. So rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse again, then play as many shows as you can. And be sure to build your set list in a way that makes for a great show, not just a series of songs played one after another. In a new documentary film about the Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl talked about how when the band first started out they didn’t pay too much attention to their set list. But once the crowds started growing, they spent time developing a solid set list that maximized the song order to put on the best show possible, instead of simply writing song names down a few minutes before the show.

Work on your “brand”

Does your band have a consistent look on stage? You don’t have to dress up in uniforms (although that’s ok too if it’s your thing), but having a cohesive look on stage can go a long way to showing that you’re serious about the visual presentation of your band.

Develop a good relationship with venue bookers

This goes back to my blog post about impressing venue bookers, if you develop solid relationships with bookers, chances are they will talk about you to booking agents. And if an agent hears about your band through a trusted source like a venue booker, it’s as good as gold.

Use your website

If you’re generating some buzz in your local scene, make sure that if an agent does check out your band that you have the right information on your website for them to see. Create a “Book My Band” section on your website, which would be similar to an online press kit, but it would include things like:

Statistics about the # of newsletter subscribers you have, Facebook fans and Twitter followers

Average attendance for your shows: are you regularly selling out 50-seat venues? 100-seat venues? Put that information somewhere on the page.

Mention which markets you play in

Have a photo gallery with lots of good quality live pics (any photos that include crowds in packed venues are a bonus)

Other than that, you should always blog about your live shows. Talk about the turnout, the crowd reaction, and post plenty of pics and live video whenever you can. All of this will help create the impression that you’re a hard-working band that takes their live shows seriously.

Should I get my friend/family member/fan to book me?

One last issue that I’ll address is whether a band should hire a friend, family member or fan to do booking for them. Although it’s tempting to delegate booking, which can be a tedious task that involves a lot of follow-up (and rejection), I think it’s best that artists book themselves until they get a professional agent on board.

The biggest reason for this is that most of the time, a friend/family member/fan is a very temporary solution, so all too often I’ve seen situations where someone starts booking a tour for a band, but then bails on them halfway through. And if you have reliable friends who will stick through it? I still think it’s better to do it on your own. The more you learn about the industry as an artist, the more informed you’ll be when your career starts to grow. So if you book yourself 200+ shows, including a few tours, you’re going to have a much better understanding of what it takes to be a good booking agent, so you’ll know what to look for when you are at the point in your career when hiring a booking agent becomes a reality.

The one band in two thousand isn't "...fortunate..." to have found that audience. It 'found' the qualities in itself and worked it's ass off.

But I sidetrack: Dave, (I can't bring myself to address you as "Mr. Cool") you left out niche marketing and niche audiences.

Jeri Goldstein's book "How to be Your Own Booking Agent" led us to playing farmers markets and house concerts cross country, booking the house concerts from the people who bought CDs at the market. We hired a stranger, not a friend, and trained her. We now have a national sponsor (Real Time Farms), a booking agent (20 hours per week paid hourly, not %), and a publicist (paid wkly) - both of whom we trained ourselves with Jeri's advice.

You might be right on the mark for mainstream musicians, but maybe a lot of these mainstream musicians should be looking for niche stream opportunities.

And working their asses off instead of moaning about how "fortunate" the successful ones are.

@Glenn I think Dave was exagerrating a bit for the point of telling a story. However, your home market is an hour and a half to two hour radius around your own city. Through hard work, you can get there. Closer to reality is 50 to 100 people paying $5 per show.

@Lafe: You beat me to it! I was thinking if your band is booking that successfully, why not train someone to do what you do. I'm thinking specifically of Virtual Assistants. You can outsource the most mundane aspects of booking while still being hands on with your contacts. From my experience, booking shows requires a lot of online mundane tasks. Hire someone else to do it!

Calculate how many hours it takes you to book shows. Create templates for everything you do. Then see if the cost of hiring someone is worth it. If a band is making $200 per show and is playing 10+ shows a month, hiring an employee or VA is more than worth it.

The only question about this article is the "1000" number. 1000 FB fans, email list subscribers, etc. Why is 1000 a magic number? Just wondering if there is some study around this other than the obvious "it's a lot of people".

Good article ! Thanks for the tips. I like the idea on creating a "Book My Band" section.

I think to many bands rush into the "I need a booking agent" idea before they've worked on the first 3 items in the article. I totally agree that you need to build a work on your music/show, build your fan base, and get your "business" up and running before a booking agent is needed or interested in working with you.

Bands need to remember that they're building a "business" and just like any other small business owner they need to think hard before increasing their costs by adding staff our outside services.

I think this is slightly misleading. Some of it is true. The part about agents wanting to make money is true. Everything else is kind of wishy washy and circumstantial.. really based on your market. Selling out a 100 person club in New York isn't that impressive. Really selling out anything under 300 doesn't turn many heads in the bigger markets.

The website bit is accurate - Having widgets on the side of your website with your feeds helps show your social media clout.

Where this article is misleading is this... My band has been pulling these numbers regularly in our home market for quite some time, and surrounding markets. In addition we have built up a few markets in Western part of our state and two surrounding states. For over a year we have drawn 200+ in our market at $8 - $10 a head, with our biggest show being 400+. This does a lot for you in your market but you need to stretch that out over a couple markets before anyone turns a head.

Most venues have their own booking agents, anyone whom gets involved in the equation after that is just digging into your pocket. I would advise to only use booking agents if you are new to that market and work on developing your own relationship with the production and booking so you can handle yourself the next time in town. This is of course true if until you are with a powerful booking agent, then you don't want to block them out because they will block you out. It's a dirty game.

A lot of these "promoters" and "agencies" that start subbing on booking for other clubs are just cannabils looking to showcase your band so they can dig in your pocket. You will end up paying more in production and lose more off the door, which isn't easy to swallow, even in your own market.

So don't work with "promoters" that have less followers/likes than you do. Go hang your own posters and tell them to walk into oncoming traffic. How many people do you know that follow promotional companies to find out where shows are at? Not in our market.

Last year we played 100 shows, about 90-95% of them self booked, and yes you learn a lot. You learn that the relationships you build with clubs are the most important and that friends in bands and venues make the best booking agents. You learn that guaranteed slots are hard to come by and if you find them you keep a good rapport with that club in particular because they will be your saving grace. You learn that touring indepently is so common that clubs are booked 3 to 4 months in advance so if you are planning a fall tour you better start booking today. You learn that playing 5 markets within 4 hours of your homebase is smarter than driving across the country. Playing California is so cool bro. NOT. You learn that sleeping in your van saves you.... $8,000 over 100 shows - so tell your singer to shut the f*ck up and go to sleep.

It is best to work with an agent where you have clout (draw). This way you can say no to bad production deals and know that you aren't going to tarnish your reputation. Be honest with agents outside of your market and tell them what you are good for. This is a very small business. Guaranteeing a packed house and drawing 0 is a good way to never get a call back... Well most of the time - *Its good to have friends at the venue.

I left out my band's name, my market and anything else traceable because I don't care to have my band judged for my tone in this comment.

I agree, the first reason why we're not having an agent is WE HAVEN'T WORKED ENOUGH FOR IT!!!... or have we?... It may not be just the case of "not having rehearsed enough", it could be the case that we have rehearsed to the point that we can play our songs backwards, but we cannot AFFORD to play at venues where there is a potential audience who likes our music, so we just play at the occasional pub whose clients include the average Joe - beer in hand - who doesn't give a damn about our music style (Gloria Estefan meets Madonna meets Sting), he just wants to hear a 3-chord strummed sequence with loads of grit. It may happen that my type of music is not suitable for the type of venue I can afford to perform at. It may also happen that, luckily one day we have a gig in an amazing venue (not paid) and I might get a few fans from it who'll remember how great and different this was but then do not have the chance of watching us live ever again, only on the internet in home-made videos...

Stephen - and here's the funny thing and Lafe is finding this too. You don't need a booking agent. They're a hindrance more than a help. Certainly with bands of our size - we don't need booking agents, we need to do the work ourselves but... here's the problem booking agents will start to find:

As time goes on, with bands using the new technology resources and knowledge like this at their disposal, they won't need you. Not small bands, not medium sized bands and eventually not bigger bands. OK - right now you won't talk to bands who don't bring in 150 or 200 or 500 or whatever to every gig they play. OK - that's fine - your risk - we understand. But the time will come that the bands pulling 1000 and 2000 and 3000 won't talk to you... you will have sidelined yourselves. We can pay for our PR and our pluggers and our promo and market our own gigs - we can do this ourselves. What can YOU bring that we can't do for ourselves?

Bookers - the acts that you turn away (or most likely ignore - there are so many of us - all those demos, it's like flies buzzing round you) - you may find that they end up squeezing you out of your own market. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there and agents and bookers are not magicians or wizards by any means...

There are a lot of good points here, some abject and almost unrelated ones as well, but albeit a few decent points.

The problem for me, is that people are arguing cross purposes and not necessarily focusing on the same issues. First and foremost I think the nature of the article is actually asking the wrong question. I agree with much of it, such as working on your brand, your live show, rehearsals, creating your strongest set, optimizing your online presence etc etc etc - bands are going to have to work harder and harder to get noticed in an industry that is becoming ever more saturated by the hour, this is all true and almost self-explanatory. The steps you need to take in order to do this are one thing, and may lead to an agent being interested in your band. The more important question however, should not be how, but WHY do you want a booking agent? When you ask this question, you can be specific to what a bands individual and unique requirements are, and an agent might not always be the correct solution.

I've written a more in depth blog (link below) in relation to this article which focuses on the question WHY not how. Please feel free to comment, respond or email me to continue the discussion.

Okay, here's the problem with this piece: what if your music is not "mainstream" enough for the bar-flies & hipsters in your little town? Or the medium sized city an hours drive from where you live? Let's say you are truly on a par with Porcupine Tree, Animals As Leaders, OSI, Gazpacho or Glass Hammer. Wait - you've never heard of any of them? Most of them sell thousands of tickets when they tour, but I can guarantee if they came to my town & got the same promotion local venues give to other bands, they might get a couple dozen people to show up.

So if internationally known artists, with strong niche followings can't fill a 150 head room at $10 per outside a major market like NYC, what should I do? Switch to playing the same style as everyone else? Switch to oldies? Become a wedding band? No thanks.

But wait! Dave said if you can't fill the local beer joint to work the website, Facebook, Twitter, bla bla bla like every other band in existence is doing. Sorry, the noise floor is just too high for most of us to get noticed on those platforms. Useless.

Here's what you need to do:1- Work a day gig & live on 20% of what you earn & bank the rest for 2 or 3 years. (Yeah, lots of ramen noodles.)2- Use the evenings & weekends during that period to write, record, & rehearse 45 minutes of jaw dropping music. The live show needs to be so well ingrained that you could do it in your sleep. And it HAS to be undeniably entertaining.3- Here's the really hard part: find a band similar in style to you, make contact, offer to open for them for FREE for as many shows as you can possibly negotiate. Offer to help fund the promo or something until you have the dates. Get it in writing, every detail. Use the money you banked to fund this & for day-to-day living.4- Quit the day gig, play like this until the budget runs out. Maybe by the end you'll have enough fans built up to actually make a meager living playing your own shows.

I hear what your saying and feel that you make some very valid points...but at the end of the day I am putting in countless hours for no pay to get "no" response from some Band Bookers, who are consistently unavailable, never answer their phone nor email and then have the balls to turn around and say they have asked for the details to be sent to their email address and have not yet heard from you! What crap!One Melbourne band booker who shall remain nameless did just this!If it was at all up to me (mind you, this had been one of my favourite venues in town) I would'nt see a gig nor play this venue ever again, and as for the majority of their line up of artists, I could seriously get better acts in that would draw a crowd, this was brought to light after going to see a band that should have pulled a good crowd to enter the venue and find about 20 people!Would you really want this venue to be batting on your behalf, surely the promotion of shows should fall equally on the venues shoulders!Gusto

I started when I was 16 yrs old for a friends band .Local , the regionally. Soo I decided to move to Los Angles and look me up on linkedIn. I spent 40 plus successful years , and also managed, made record deals, promoted, had a studio and won a Grammy for doing Ike Turner's last album. I did it because I loved Music first then the money came.Dennis Rubenstein

It's not impossible to reach the 1.000 likes. All you have to do is dedicate. My band got more than 1000 likes in 1 year. We had 700 people in the beggining of 2012, but then we decided to change our name. We had to do it all over again. We released new songs and played more gigs and updated our fanpage more than ever, Today we have more than 1400 likes and still going up. Furthermore, I believe that the most important thing is that the fans are REALLY into it now and we have more likes and comments when we post a picture/video/whatever than bands that have 5-7 thousand likes. They even shout our name in gigs! Bands that give up early are the ones who make the way easier to bands that really dedicate themselves. We're still on it, and we'll keep working to have an exponential growth this year.

...at the end of the day, it's the MUSIC that does the talking. Bands with talent and dedication to hard work and sticking together will get where they want to go. On the other hand, Booking Agents, Venue Owners, Talent Buyers, and Promoters all have a holier than thou attitude - Most ignore bands at best, nevermind taking a few seconds of their oh-so-precious time to respond - not even a thanks but no thanks sentence. No, that's beneath them. One goofball agent I worked with had an artist I was trying to book in a 600 cap room. He was so big-headed (and so is the artist) that he kept saying in his snotty, surfer dude California voice "Its not gunna work" "the venue is muccch tooooo smaaaaall". Well, guess how many tickets his "superstar" sold for their next gig? That's right - less than 600. Dumbass fools will never learn.

I am onvolved in two bands! And we have one gig booked for the whole year so far in June!The Highlighters is a five piece pub and fun party band with a reasonable following, a great sound with covers from Stones, Beatles etc to Shadows, Eagles to Pink, Van Morrison etcBlac/Kandy is a new four piece with a gorgeous young female vocalist, covering everything from Elton John, to Lady Gaga, Christina Aguilera to Adele, Foo Fighters etc . A great mix of acoustic and keyboards to electric guitar, with a touch of ELO thrown in!We need an agent to help us all get on the road. Every agent I've emailed has 'auto response' and you think 'Wow, that was quick!' Only to find it was just their computer set to reply, and they don't even bother!! Then you find they bring in those old bands from the 70's, getting venues to pay a fortune, tiny crowd, shit sound, and local bands go begging! Wake up Adelaide. If the current trend continues, most music shops will close down.......get us a gig guys! 0402061758

Good article. It's nice to see someone encourage a do-it-yourself approach. Too many folks expect everything to fall in line simply because they have a band and a record. It's becoming increasingly more difficult to get attention as an artist. I've met the criteria that Dave Cool suggests and I haven't had any booking agents come knocking. That's not a complaint. I do fine getting gigs on my own. But I do want to let some of you know that even if you have a few thousand fans, followers and email addresses, it doesn't guarantee a thing. It's difficult and tedious booking a tour, but I keep all my earnings and get to know many of the venue owners and talent buyers very well. So don't depend on anyone to come rescue you. If you're not willing to do the leg work yourself indefinitely, you won't last. Being completely independent is more slow-going, but I've found that the grassroots fans are more loyal than any other. So keep on plugging. If you have endurance things will gradually improve.

My band has 10,000 likes(and growing) on Facebook. We have established a solid reputation in WNY. We have toured the entire country and even into Canada. Our music is available in almost every online outlet, and are selling our music as far away as Germany. Everything is published. We have built up an entire clothing line and work with several artists and designers from around the world. Our live show lights the crowd up every time we play. We have been complimented on our stage presence from a multitude of national acts. We recently just released a music video. There have been several articles written about our music and have even had video interviews from several online radio stations. We have the fan base, the experience, the music, the brand, the image, and a full throttle live show. Still have yet to see a real booking agent/agency contact us.

I play in a "niche" band which concentrates on the music of Frank Zappa. This is one very small corner of the musical spectrum which,thankfully, still has a global fan base. We have the "required' 1000+ likes everywhere and get booked to play shows all over Europe. usually that would be at Zappa-esque/Alternative festivals ,but honestly ,the crowds really vary nowadays ,based generally on how motivating the online publicity is to actually get people off their asses and out to a show. The world is different and people WILL stay home if there is a drop of rain and just watch 2 songs from your band on Youtube then do something else......last year on a UK tour we had 1200 people on Friday night and 37 on the Saturday ! Dennis has hit the nail on the head - Love the Music first ,if you play good shit and love it,the gigs and maybe some cash might come along.......and if not, fuck it, play anyway !

To All these beautiful Agency, booking, management and their beautiful promises which have nothing else to offer than a facebook page.!! Before they asking for a audio and Visual audition ((( It was the good time ))) !!! Then it was an audio demo. Now they demand to see videos. Soon will have to make 200 show annually, have 1000000 fan and view on YouTube! Why do we need team ?? Because our job is to compose and play music... It's for the rest like booking,management and others that there is need of a team!!!! Sorry, but everything's is chosen and built in conjunction with a virtual world .. We can use it but These are only tools That's it !!!!!!! We must continue to use our judgement and not just sitting on what we see on the net:)!! We are in an air of people with no balls which are even not fucked up to judge whether a music or a band is good or not ..... But I love

The one point most are not focusing on is this - You talk about BEING ABLE to do the booking yourself or you SHOULD do the booking yourself but DO YOU do the booking yourself? Has anyone in your band done it regularly for more than a month, for instance? Apply the same to promoting yourself on social media. If you don't want an agent or a publicist someone in the band has to do it. It's not easy doing it month after month, year after year. It IS easy to get the one gig you may boast about for months but build a tour around it without hundreds of miles between shows, making enough to bring money home, handle the load in/sound check/lodging, how/when you're getting paid, start time, set lengths, tab if any, what backline they have if any, details of a "door" gig. Even venues we play regularly usually require multiple phone calls, emails, texts, etc to confirm the next one because most aren't that organized and are nearly impossible to reach within the time frame you need to hear back from them to coordinate with other shows on the tour. The amount of time that goes into booking, especially on the road is far more than anyone who hasn't done it full time would ever believe. I'm organized, keep records and do far more than the large agencies do for their bands. I know this because they often call ME for help in booking, their artists consistently say "My agent doesn't do that for us"......Back to my point. Saying you CAN do it is far different than DOING it and DOING it consistently. Musicians have a talent that I envy but few WANT to deal with this stuff and even fewer are good at it. We have large numbers on facebook, Reverb but venues aren't knocking down our doors to book us. You need to be proactive. Even national acts pay publicists thousands per month to keep people coming to their shows. You would be surprised! Getting people's hard earned dollars is a nonstop job. 1% of 1% make it without a continued effort. If you don't do it yourself you will have to pay for it.Even if you have an agent I still agree with the points made in the article about presenting yourself well, create a good relationship with the venues (I can't sell you to someone who wasn't impressed with you on the one shot you had). Dave Grohl's advice is legit, too. Focus on what you are good at - writing and performing. Present yourselves well at every show. You don't have to LIKE every person you work with at a venue. I don't. I grit my teeth, bite my tongue, have to be the bad guy to protect the band more often than I want to think about. It takes us a lot of work to get you a gig. Respect that effort and make the most of the show so it's not effort down the drain.Regarding talent buyers in your local market who won't book you. Yes, they will be sorry when they want you down the road when you're BIG and they can't afford you. Success is sweet revenge. Those further away who don't answer the phone, email, texts...PLEASE put your booking requirements, policies, genres of bands you will and will not book (and bands, believe that and move on if you don't fit in) and HOW and WHEN to reach you. If you know you are not interested, let us know so we don't waste our time any longer. Otherwise, if you are booking only the ones who happen to call when the few minutes per week that you DO answer the phone, you are missing out and so is your club. If you can't get through the submissions, you may not be letting bands know on your website what exactly you are and aren't looking for and/or not being specific enough. Let us know what your pay range/policy is - that might knock out a lot of them. I've been on that end. It's a powerful position that goes to some buyers' heads. It's also demanding when you try to do it fairly.

Thanks, Dave for getting this discussion rolling with some solid tips for any band. I have really enjoyed reading the replies-- it's great to see musicians engaged and invested in the business! I have been playing for some 40 years. The first 25, I did nothing but perform. Then, because of opportunity and love of the craft, I formed a video production company. I drifted away from performances and was pretty much consumed by the video business-- still I have played and written songs every day since. In other words I was a musician who happened to do other things.

Back in the '80's I had a band that sent a monthly newsletter out to over 2,000 homes (that was before email!). We were among the top 5 draws in the tri-state area. We had regional airplay and sold out 1,000 to 1,500 seat venues regularly.

But, now I have found that everything has changed (for the better, but changed). I recently was asked to do an outdoor concert in Western Pennsylvania (my old stomping grounds-- I now live in Florida). Amazingly there were a few hundred fans there even though the place was so remote there was no cell phone service-- for anyone! I followed that up with a successful house concert in Miami a few days ago-- the host sent links of my videos and songs to his guests a month before the event.

I was looking for a booking agent because I recently did a video for an organization called "Building Homes for Heroes". These folks build and remodel homes for our combat-wounded veterans coming from Iraq and Afghanistan. The homes are customized to make it easier for them to live with their injuries. You can find a video about them here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37VKx4XHEg4.

I was so moved by what I learned that I wanted to help. I am not a man of means (I have no disposable income), but I have figured out a way. I want to do a college tour to benefit this organization. I haven't had a lot of luck contacting the right people at the colleges in the limited time I have to pursue it. So, I thought that a booking agent who already had the connections could make it a lot easier. And, the agent could take a percentage of the door (fair enough). I could make thousands for Building Homes for Heroes in this way. Google me to see videos from now going back to the '80s, and my songs are on iHeart Radio, Spotify, Soundcloud, Reverbnation, iTunes, Amazon etc. If anyone can help with this goal, I would be grateful. -- Arte atedesco@cfl.rr.com

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